“It is being thrown into the earth,” began the learned grain.

Oh, what a passion the proud grain got into!  “Into the earth?” she shrieked out.  “Into the common earth?  The earth is nothing but dirt, and I am not a common grain of wheat.  I won’t be sown!  I will not be sown!  How dare anyone sow me against my will!  I would rather stay in the sack.”

But just as she was saying it, she was thrown out with the learned grain and some others into another dark place, and carried off by the farmer, in spite of her temper; for the farmer could not hear her voice at all, and wouldn’t have minded if he had, because he knew she was only a grain of wheat, and ought to be sown, so that some good might come of her.

Well, she was carried out to a large field in the pouch which the farmer wore at his belt.  The field had been ploughed, and there was a sweet smell of fresh earth in the air; the sky was a deep, deep blue, but the air was cool and the few leaves on the trees were brown and dry, and looked as if they had been left over from last year.  “Ah!” said the learned grain.  “It was just such a day as this when my grandfather, or my father, or somebody else related to me, was sown.  I think I remember that it was called Early Spring.”

“As for me,” said the proud grain, fiercely, “I should like to see the man who would dare to sow me!”

At that very moment, the farmer put his big, brown hand into the bag and threw her, as she thought, at least half a mile from them.

He had not thrown her so far as that, however, and she landed safely in the shadow of a clod of rich earth, which the sun had warmed through and through.  She was quite out of breath and very dizzy at first, but in a few seconds she began to feel better and could not help looking around, in spite of her anger, to see if there was anyone near to talk to.  But she saw no one, and so began to scold as usual.

“They not only sow me,” she called out, “but they throw me all by myself, where I can have no company at all.  It is disgraceful.”

Then she heard a voice from the other side of the clod.  It was the learned grain, who had fallen there when the farmer threw her out of his pouch.

“Don’t be angry,” it said, “I am here.  We are all right so far.  Perhaps, when they cover us with the earth, we shall be even nearer to each other than we are now.”

“Do you mean to say they will cover us with the earth?” asked the proud grain.

“Yes,” was the answer.  “And there we shall lie in the dark, and the rain will moisten us, and the sun will warm us, until we grow larger and larger, and at last burst open!”

“Speak for yourself,” said the proud grain; “I shall do no such thing!”

But it all happened just as the learned grain had said, which showed what a wise grain it was, and how much it had found out just by thinking hard and remembering all it could.